Monday, January 25, 2016

Ex-NFL QB, Vince Young, was arrested after driving erratically and being uncooperative. He was charged with a DUI and with impersonating Johnny “Football” Manziel. 


In a 49-15 loss to the Carolina Panthers, Arizona Cardinal QB, Carson Palmer, had six turnovers. The Patriots didn’t turn that many balls over to the refs when they checked the air pressure. 

By the end of the fourth quarter, Palmer tried to throw in the towel, but it was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.


The Flint Michigan water scandal is bad. Apparently the state’s attempt to bottle the water and label it “Chunky Style” did not fly.



Carolina Panther linebacker, Thomas Davis, broke his arm against the Arizona Cardinals, but he plans to play in the Super Bowl. In a side note, I had a brain-freeze drinking a smoothie this morning and went back to bed. 



Alaska was hit with a 7.2 earthquake. It was so bad it knocked Bristol Palin off the dude she just met. 


Three prisoners escaped from the Orange County, CA jail. The escapees are described as radically gnarly and extremely bogus. 



To give you an idea how huge the East Coast snowstorm is, people are calling their jobs saying they cannot make it to work on Monday. And that is in Los Angeles. 

Since you asked:


With all the nice memories of Glenn Frey and the Eagles, I am slightly perturbed by the repetition of the incorrect cliche “California laid-back rock.” 

More than slightly . . . 

On their first album, “Take It Easy” is about a hitchhiker who gets laid by a babe in a truck. That is American rock.

“Witchy Woman” flat out rocks-out and it is about getting laid by a coke-snorting, crazy Satan-worshiping nymphomaniac. What is more rock and roll than that? 

“Peaceful Easy Feeling” is just an extension of “Take It Easy” where he proposes having sex in the desert. 

“Tryin’” and “Chug All Night” rock out, they just did not get radio time. Listen to “Tryin’.”

People who say the Eagles didn’t rock remind me of the guy in “Spinal Tap” who says of his amplifier;

“But this one goes to eleven.”

When a band has three great guitarists over their life like Bernie Leadon, Don Felder and Joe Walsh, what matters is the execution, not the volume. 

Back when they used to be connected with music, MTV learned how to divide the men from the boys as musicians when they came up with “MTV Unplugged.” Eric Clapton showed everyone that the better the guitarist, the better they sound unplugged. 

Many top big-hair Eighties bands, like Van Halen, Ratt, Poison and Ratt Poison,  left the MTV soundstage with their poisoned rat tails between their legs. They sounded like crap without nuked-up studio screaming and screeching. 

Many of the so-called top bands at the time just did not have the musical chops to play and sing acoustic. They hid their lack of dexterity and artistry behind increased volume and studio wizardry. 

Do you want to measure the rock-worthiness of a band by their hard-living lifestyle? The Eagles led all in trashed rental cars, hotel rooms and crazy private jet pilot stunts. 

Do you want to measure them by booze, drugs and women? The Eagles were probably a close fourth behind the Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Who. Way ahead of the Beatles. 

To say a band that is skilled enough to sing harmonies play acoustic songs well cannot rock is to say Led Zeppelin and the Stones can't rock. "Angie." "Wild Horses." "Going to California." Beginning to "Stairway to Heaven."

Hell one of Jimi Hendrix's greatest songs was mostly acoustic: "Little Wing." 

The wildly underrated guitarist and songwriter and regular Don Henley collaborator, Danny Kortchmar, said it best: 

"After we tell the real stories about James Taylor and the Eagles, California laid-back rock will be deader than disco."